Friday 24th - Heading north via the Loire

The day started with throwing the sheets and towels in the machine and getting them hung up super quickly so they’d have time to dry. Next down to the pool for a final swim. Down there we said our goodbyes to Wally & Ellen, who couldn’t quite believe we were having a swim on the morning of our departure and looking very relaxed about everything. It’s quite simple – we don’t want to pick up the hire car until 5pm, so we can drop it off in Paris at 5pm, as we can’t collect our AirBnB apartment key until after 6pm.

Bar le Pablo

A nice salad for lunch, cleaning out the fridge, then a big goodbye to all the waiters at Bar Pablo, where Bruno gave us a final free bon voyage pair of coffees.

We closed up the shutters after taking the plants in (we hope they will survive between the windows and shutters, too bad if they don’t), shut the windows, turned off the power and left. Down to the bus, into Perpignan and were off in a little Chevrolet Spark not long after 4:30pm. Ugly little car, but works OK as long as it is revved hard.

Montech

Off we went up past Carcassonne, then turned northwest before Toulouse using the toll roads to get us on our way a bit more quickly. Unbelievable amount of sunflowers being grown, unfortunately all very brown and sad. Drove through Montauban to Cahors where we had tagged the fortified bridge as worth a look. We’d booked the first night, and at ¼ to 9 got a call saying we are closing at 9, where are you. Our booking had said 9:30pm, but we arrived with a few minutes to spare anyway. Sad to have left Céret, but plenty to look at to keep us occupied.